


If you find one please let me know what piece I've lost

by thelastfig



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Civil War Fix-It, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Everyone Has Issues, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, No One Is Perfect, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Feels, Superfamily, Tony Stark Has Issues, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 23:42:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17334572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastfig/pseuds/thelastfig
Summary: Bucky wakes up in Wakanda on his way to healing from his years as the Winter Solider. His reintroduction to life at the Avengers Compound throws a rock into the already fractured relationship between Steve and Tony, both who are unwilling to let go of each other despite how dysfunctional they've become. When Tony is unable to finish the arm he has promised to build for Bucky, he seeks out the missing neurosurgeon who examined him after he fell through the wormhole years earlier.Relationships, like life, are complicated.





	If you find one please let me know what piece I've lost

**Author's Note:**

> Long time reader, first time writer in this fandom. I wanted a Tony/Stephen that featured the whole crew and this is what came to life. I've not written in nearly two years, so I'm a bit rusty and please forgive any spelling errors or typos as I've not had this beta'ed.
> 
> This is a canon divergence from the end of Civil War with all of Civil War happening but a change in the outcome of the final battle in Siberia.

When Bucky wakes up in a soft bed with the warmth of the sun making itself known against his skin, he doesn't open his eyes. There is probably not a bed and the sun is most likely a heat lamp, put there to trick him before his next mission. With his eyes closed, he can have his mind to himself for a few more seconds before they throw him into the chair and everything goes blank.

 

"I know you're awake," a female voice with an accent he can't place says softly. "The procedure worked, HYDRA should not be in your mind anymore."

 

His eyes snap open and he scans the room like he has been trained before reaching for an item to use for a weapon and flinging himself off the bed. Except, where he had an arm before he has none, so instead of catching himself and turning, he stumbles and falls flat on his face. He is lifted before can drag himself back to his feet and deposited back in the bed by two men who do not look amused. The woman, a girl really, however looks rather amused and Bucky stares at her for a long moment before the events prior to his waking up come crashing back into him.

 

"Princess Shuri," he says, with a bow of his head, "I apologize." 

 

"For falling on your face?" He hears the humor in her voice and is glad there wasn't a larger audience to see his less than graceful awakening.  "You are forgiven if you will lay down and let me finish scanning."

 

Bucky has some recollection of Wakanda before they put him under, but this technology is overwhelming when he thinks of the cold, spartan technology HYDRA kept him in. He complies without another word, watching as the screens she is studying light up, flip over, disappear entirely, and move with scans of his brain as well as what he thinks is his nervous system.  It would look fine, if it weren't for a missing arm. Shuri doesn't take too much longer, but he watches as she zooms in on the area of his shoulder where his arm is missing as well as the plate that was fastened there when HYDRA gave him his arm. These scans she pushes to the side of her screen, and they zip off as if meant for someone else. Watching her work is therapeutic in the sense that watching her movement is hypnotic and focusing on watching her movement means he doesn't have to think about anything else.

 

"What will happen to me now?" He asks her when she pushes a button and the bed begins to sit him upright.

 

"We test you and then you heal."

 

"I thought the procedure worked?"

 

"It did. You don't go run if you replace your knee- you make sure the body doesn't reject it and then let it heal."

 

Bucky can't argue with that and after two more days of bed rest where he thinks his brain might explode from the historical documentaries Shuri has provided for him so he can 'catch up on what he has missed', he is taken to a room which appears to be fortified with vibranium. T'Challa is there, officially king now after some sort of internal conflict no one is willing to talk about, in his Black Panther suit. It's the first time Bucky has seen him since waking up. This is his final test before he can be let out of the medical wing, and his stomach has been churning since Shuri told him what to expect.

 

"Your highness," Bucky slightly dips his head and T'Challa waves him off with a smile

 

For her safety Shuri is in another room separated by a glass wall and using a speaker, she instructs Bucky to sit in the chair in the middle of the room. His knees shake barely enough to be perceivable, but he feels like he collapses into the chair. There's a soldier with a tranquilizer gun on the other side of the glass next to Shuri in the event her cure has not worked. 

 

"What happens if it didn't work?" He had asked her when she explained the final test to him.

 

"You go back to sleep and I try again." She tells him. "I won't stop trying."

 

'What if I want you to?' Bucky had thought to himself. 

 

He imagines waking up in a future where no one he knows is still alive and there is little use for someone with his skills. He sees Steve growing less and less hopeful with each try until he finally gives up and realizes Bucky isn't worth the constant worry. He has nightmares of HYDRA finding him and using him again until he is spent and tossed aside like the tool they've crafted him into.

 

Dark thoughts consume him and he doesn't react when straps come out of the chair and restrain him. T'Challa's mask flows effortlessly onto his face as Shuri begins to read the words. Bucky tenses, waiting for his mind to give way and go blank with the last word.

 

It doesn't happen.

 

Another voice, male and with a different accent, reads the words and again nothing happens. 

 

The straps disappear and Bucky quickly covers his eyes with his hand as the tears begin to pour down his face. In the other room he can hear Shuri cheering with other members of her laboratory. A hand comes down on his shoulder and Bucky wipes the tears away with an apology and looks at T'Challa, who is standing there in his normal clothing, the Panther suit nowhere to be seen. 

 

"Do not apologize- be at peace, Sgt. Barnes," T'Challa says, "you are free from them."

 

Bucky isn't sure what to think about that, but being aware he is in control of his confusing thoughts is liberation in and of itself.

 

*

 

A few days later finds himself in a remote village on the edge of a small lake. Most days he doesn't understand why people think he is worth keeping around now that "Operation Spring Thaw" as Shuri calls it has been successful, but that decision is out of his hand. There had been arguments, over what was suitable for Bucky with T'Challa asking him to stay in the city as a guest and Bucky wanting both space and a place to help. And so here he is, helping farmers plow fields to prepare for the next planting cycle. He rises with the sun and spends his days in the field or walking the hills and plains around them. He collapses into bed as the sun sets, exhausted but grateful as exhaustion means his mind can't linger in places he'd rather avoid.

 

The village children are curious, and with his long hair and scruff on his face they take to calling him the white wolf. He's not been surrounded by laughter in a long time and listening to them play and laugh is startling at first and soothing once he's used to it. They teach him the local games of rural village children, he shows them the games he played in the concrete jungle of Brooklyn. It only takes a week among them for Bucky to learn to smile again, chipping away at some of the weight he carries with him at all time.

 

There are days when it feels like for every ounce of himself he finds, another pound of flesh and memory is carved away or tainted by the remnants of what he's been forced to endure. There are nights he doesn't sleep because he knows what will haunt him if he does and the days that follow claw at his tenuous hold on sanity. The mud huts the villagers live in look simple and primitive- they are anything but that and Bucky must at times put his hut on lockdown to make sure he doesn't lash out at things and people who aren't there. Shuri visits him, educates him on what he's missed and discovers shell shock is a medical diagnosis that can be treated. They call it something else now, but there are pills that help his constant anxiety once they figure out how to dose him. Eventually, she tells him, he will have to find a doctor for the type of therapy he needs, but he is not ready to face his trauma yet.

 

And so Bucky stays, an outsider in a strange and foreign land, learning to become human again while reaching for the pieces of himself to put back into a facsimile of what he used to be.

 

*

 

In the months that compose his convalescents, his only news of the outside world is what Shuri brings him. Occasionally they go into the city, to gauge his reactions to being around large crowds of people and whether or not he is ready. Always they are trailed by a group of bodyguards who don't try to blend in with the crowds, ready to restrain him if something in his "reset" breaks down and he reverts. He thinks it should bother him, but it doesn't as even with a constant eye on him he is freer than the past decades. The Winter Soldier's programming might be gone, but Bucky doesn't think the Soldier ever will truly be gone, existing at the periphery of his consciousness trying to sneak back in. 

 

"When am I allowed to leave," he asks Shuri one day at they are traversing the arid plains to return him to his village. 

 

"Is Wakanda not to your taste, Sgt. Barnes?" She replies with the contrarian smile he's come to appreciate as she is the only one who doesn't treat him like he is about to break. He raises an eyebrow at her and she doesn't hold the laugh back. "You're not a prisoner, you can leave if you want. However, the United Nations and Mr. Stark are still battling out the conditions of your legal status, if you were to be found."

 

His stomach drops and he knows his expression has gone blank by the worry that passes over Shuri's face and he looks away. The last time he saw Tony Stark, the other man had tried to kill him and Bucky fought back and tried to do the same. Bucky still doesn't know how he feels about that, whether he was fighting for his life or if the Winter Soldier was fighting for release. Whatever Stark is doing with the UN, Bucky doubts it will end well for him.

 

"My brother says Mr. Stark argues with them to allow you to stay at the Avengers compound instead of under UN guard. They don't believe he can contain you," she still looks concerned when he turns back to look at her, "he argues for your freedom." 

 

"I don't understand."

 

She shrugs. "Who understands Tony Stark?"

 

Bucky can't answer that as he doesn't know who Tony Stark is aside from the man whose parents Bucky killed. The man who tried to kill him but was somehow stopped and convinced to keep his mouth shut as T'Challa and Steve brought him to Wakanda. And now, apparently, the man who is trying to free him.

 

This puzzles Bucky for the next few weeks as he continues to make leaps and bounds in his recovery (according to Shuri anyway), and continues to confound him until the day Steve shows up with a careful smile on his face and tells Bucky is time to go home. 

 

*

 

The first time Bucky awakes in the Avengers compound, Steve is asleep on a chair at the foot of his bed. It's the first time nothing urgent is pressing on them since they've been reunited and Bucky takes a moment to study him. Like Bucky he hasn't aged, but Bucky sees the weight of the world carved into Steve's features deeper than ever. There's a tension between his brows he didn't carry before and his lips are slightly downturned. Bucky wonders how much of that he is responsible for and adds it to his growing tally of reasons Steve should have or eventually will just walk away.

 

Looking around the room, he takes in the neutral gray colors and the large (tastefully set with iron lattice but Bucky knows bars when he sees them) windows. There's a sliding door for a closet, another that he thinks leads out into the hall, but two others he's not sure about. This is nicer than anywhere he's stayed, save perhaps a few nights in the Wakandan palace, and it's nice enough he knows it's temporary as nice things are not really meant for people who have done what he has done.

 

The medication for his anxiety is on the bedside table along with a bottle of water, and he reaches for it knowing the next few days will be the most difficult of his recovery process. The different medications they have him on make him a little groggy when he first wakes up and he manages to knock the bottle onto the floor when setting it down. The noise causes Steve to jerk awake and Bucky freezes mid-reach for the water bottle. Nothing but silence passes between them for a minute, and then Steve is out of his chair reaching for the water bottle and twisting the top off before handing it to Bucky. There's an awkward moment where Bucky fumbles the pills already in his hand while reaching for the bottle, but he's able to quickly throw the pills in his mouth before taking a few sips of water to knock them back with. Steve is nice enough to look away during this, to reach down for the dropped pill bottle and put it back on the stand.

 

"How are you feeling?" Steve asks him, taking the water bottle back from him and putting the cap back on. "Are you hungry? Do you need the bathroom? Are-"

 

"I'm fine," Bucky cuts him off, knowing Steve won't stop. "Bathroom?"

 

One of the mystery doors leads him to a bathroom, a private bathroom he notes with a small degree of satisfaction, and Steve leaves him after showing him how the shower works and telling him the closet is stocked with clothing for him to choose from. After taking care of bodily functions, he stands under a hot shower for far longer than he should, letting the water try to coax some of the tension from his shoulders. It works on the shoulder which still has an arm attached to it, but the shoulder with his missing arm remains stiff and painful. Shutting the water off, he dries himself off, combs out the long mane of hair he's accumulated (he's not letting anyone close to him with a knife or scissors and with only one arm he can't cut it himself), before padding back out to the bedroom and looking into the closet.

 

As Steve said, it is full of all sorts of clothing in his size and it takes him a moment to comprehend all the choices in front of him. Bucky has never been able to choose his own clothing-  as a child of the depression he had maybe two pairs of pants and three shirts, and later as a soldier his clothing was dictated by the government and then by HYDRA. He has to sit down to let this wave crash over him before he can resurface and tell himself it's just clothes, but it's hard to breathe when something this simple is overwhelming. 

 

When he is able to piece himself back together, he finds a plain, long-sleeved shirt softer than anything he's touched before. As he pulls it on and feels it drag against his skin he lets out a quiet, content sigh and immediately feels foolish something as simple as a soft shirt has this effect on him. He quickly grabs a pair of jeans and pulls them on, noting they have an elastic cord that loops around a button instead of the normal button and hole, something that makes it easier for him to fasten. Bucky wonders if it's a coincidence or if someone thought of this for him.

 

A knock comes from the door and Bucky shakes himself from his thoughts, throws the towel in the hamper, and mutters for whoever it is to enter. As expected, Steve opens the door and inquires if the clothes fit to which Bucky nods. 

 

"I made lunch if you're hungry?" Steve asks and Bucky nods again, not really hungry but unsure of the next time he will be offered food. 

 

He follows Steve out of the room, down the hall, and then up a few floors in an elevator. It lets them out in what looks like a living area, with a few tables and chairs scattered around and a large tv with plush couches surrounding it. It's clean, but there are signs of other people using the area with books and other personal items scattered around. No one else is there now as Steve leads him into the kitchen and motions for him to sit at one of the barstools as he goes to open the refrigerator. Advances in technology still take getting used to; he has little memory of the world around him as he was reset each time he was taken in and out of cryo.  Steve slides an impossibly large sandwich across the countertop, and Bucky can smell the telltale spices of corned beef and the sharpness of the slaw. He stares at it unsure as to why this combination is making him hesitate, another step in relearning who he is.

 

"Do I like this?" He asks Steve, and Steve's non-existent poker face crumbles slightly.

 

"It was your favorite." Steve tells him. "There was a deli we would go to when we had extra money."

 

"Defontes," Bucky pulls from somewhere and the smile that lights up Steve's face is enough to loosen the knots of another tangled memory. 

 

_ Oh. _

 

He reaches for the sandwich, neatly cut into a size easy to maneuver with one hand, and takes a bite and then another and another. He's hungrier than he thought he was, and it doesn't take him very long to polish off his sandwich and looking up, he sees Steve is only halfway finished with his. There's a fruit bowl and he reaches for an apple, marveling at its size before taking a bite out of it. He looks everywhere but at Steve while eating it, at the different machines littering the countertop of the kitchen, out the window at the expansive fenced in property the Avengers compound consists of, at the lived-in but at the moment strangely empty living space.

 

"There's a mission," Steve tells him, already and always a step ahead of him. "Well, not really a mission. They went to a primary school for a meet and greet. Or a fundraiser. I wasn't paying attention."

 

"There's a first," Bucky says with some semblance of his old sarcastic wit, and the way Steve's mouth twitches up at the side like it does when he's amused but trying not to show it lets Bucky know exactly how he feels about his best friend. 

 

There's some sort of metaphor or other literary device he feels he should be making about hearts and muscle memory enduring despite mind reconditioning, but he's too busy trying to keep himself from bolting out the door. There's no point to it though, as he knows the compound is being watched and going missing would land Steve in more trouble than Bucky's worth.

 

"I thought I'd give you a tour if you're up to it," Steve tries to keep the eagerness out of his voice, but Bucky finds the sound of hope in Steve's voice is something else that's lingered in the few memories he keeps. 

 

"I'd like that."

 

Steve takes their plates and puts them inside a metal cabinet (a dishwasher, Steve explains, showing Bucky how it works and hey, isn't that neat), before pointing out different features of the kitchen. Bucky hasn't really been in a kitchen since the 1940s and he's a little overwhelmed at  the amount of food in the refrigerator, the various devices for making coffee, the stove which doesn't need a fire to work- all of it really. Steve whisks him out of the kitchen at the first sign of Bucky's discomfort; Bucky doesn't understand after everything he's done and everything he's capable of, how someone like Steve Rogers is still in his life. 

 

There's a large flat wall for the film projector, surrounded by plush, red couches. Bucky is familiar with VHS and DVDs but Steve tells him he can ask JOCASTA to play anything he wants and she'll just play it. 

 

"Who is Jocasta?"

 

"I am the compound AI and I'm happy to assist you in any way necessary Sgt Barnes," a voice fills the room causing Bucky to visibly flinch.

 

"A computer program," Steve tells him as Bucky looks around for a person. "Tony can explain it more if you'd like. He designed it."

 

Bucky's sure Tony wants to explain something to him as much as Bucky wants to be in the same room as Tony. He nods to keep the conversation moving and hopes Steve forgets about it.

 

They move away from the couches and Steve points out other items- a giant dining table, an open office or working area, and what looks like some sort of modern games off to the corner. His eyes catch on an overflowing bookcase and he hopes he's allowed to borrow a book from it. Up a staircase there is a glassed off room forming a sort of group office, with various pictures pinned and taped to boards and walls with arrows and words scrawled between them.  There's an obvious divide between the people depicted on the walls, some of them are allies but many more are hostiles. The whole board is littered with question marks. Bucky wonders how long he was on the hostile wall and if they moved him once Steve discovered who he was. There's a few faces he thinks he knows, but whether he's seen them in person or in old files isn't clear. Most things aren't clear.

 

One face in particular stands out to him, an average looking man with the letters VK written in red marker next to the grainy photo. Bucky knows this face, but knows him without the wrinkles and dark circles under his eyes. It's hard to forget someone who has held a gun to his head on more than one occasion.

 

"You don't need to do this now," Steve's hand comes down on his shoulder, a soft touch as if Bucky is made of glass and a breeze away from shattering. 

 

Bucky turns his head slightly to look at the hand on his shoulder, and that's when he notices it. There's a slight indentation on Steve's ring finger and the skin there is whiter than elsewhere on his hand meaning he's worn it for some time. This thought stays at the forefront of Bucky's mind as Steve shepherds him out of the room and continues on with the tour. They finish up the main building, with Steve telling him different people live on different floors and if Bucky doesn't like his room they can move him to a different one. He follows Steve across a skybridge into the area the Avengers train in and he sees a well-equipped gym, a swimming pool, a sparring area, as well as what looks like some sort of room set up for simulations. There's probably more items that Bucky looks at but doesn't register because all he can think of is Steve has a wedding ring that he took off. There's only two possible reasons for Steve not to be wearing the ring and that's either the relationship failed or Steve took it off so Bucky wouldn't see.

 

Eventually they return to the hall his room is in, and Steve shows him how to use the Starkpad on his desk to read and suggests something called Wikipedia. Going to the mysterious fourth door, Steve opens it and reveals it's another bedroom.

 

"This is my room so just knock if you need anything." Steve tells him with a smile as Bucky takes a quick peek inside. "If I'm not here, just ask Jocasta where I am and she can guide you to me." He looks up at the ceiling. "Jocasta, when is the rest of the team due back?"

 

"The team will return within the next two hours, "Jocasta's dulcet voice answers. "Mr. Stark is staying in the city tonight."

 

"Thank you." Steve turns back to Bucky. "Do you want to watch a film or…?" 

 

He leaves it open ended and Bucky knows Steve is trying to not push him and give him an easy out.

 

"Sleep," is all Bucky says, nodding at Steve and throwing one more furtive look into Steve's room.

 

Steve says something, but Bucky's already making his way over to the desk to grab the flat electric book thing and then over to the closet to see if there's something to sleep in. When Steve closes the door, Bucky falls back onto the bed with a quiet, controlled sigh. 

 

Steve's room had been empty, devoid of personal effects or anything else to make it appear as if someone lived there. Like an unadorned ring finger, the emptiness speaks louder than anything else and Bucky falls asleep wondering where Steve normally sleeps and who is wearing the matching ring.

 

*

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments, concerns, and constructive criticism very appreciated.
> 
> Fic title from "Welcome Home" by Radical Face, which is a gorgeous song that really encapsulates the feel I'm trying for.


End file.
